LETTERS | What Happened in Norfolk?

Published: September 2, 2007

What Happened in Norfolk?

After reading Alan Berlow's article (Aug. 19) about the confessions that were made in the Norfolk rape-murder investigation, including the comments from the interviewed experts about false confessions (how they are typically elicited; state of mind of the confessor), it seems to me that the ability of the investigator to wield the threat of the death penalty dangerously skews the situation. I hope this can be one more piece of evidence as to why the death penalty should be abolished. Certainly a situation can be imagined in which giving a false confession is preferable to the thought of losing one's life. This story demonstrates that the mere legality of the death penalty can facilitate gross miscarriages of justice even when one is not sentenced to its punishment.

Matthew Ulterino

London

I served on a jury that convicted one of the sailors (in Arlington, Va., a change-of-venue site). I and my fellow jurors were puzzled by the fact that things didn't add up properly. Lots of unanswered questions. Your writer identified all of the key issues that troubled us. Yet the charge by the presiding judge was relatively narrow. First, it was easy for us to avoid the execution question because there was no ''smoking gun'' evidence like a DNA test or a witness. But as the article pointed out, there was that convincing confession. So it was ''life without parole.'' I am relieved that there were some good people who kept this and the other cases alive so that the courts could get closer to the true story of that horrible rape and murder.